Another Week Gone...

This week has been... exciting. You'll probably get to the end of this post and wonder if you missed the exciting part. You didn't. It's just that my sense of accomplishment has definitely been skewed by my new status as SAHM. I'm coming up on the one year mark in a couple months, and I'm finally getting the hang of it. I think.

Last weekend, I was DONE. FINISHED. Tired of living in a disorganized house that seemed to be messy all the time, and took twice as long as it should to do the everyday tasks of life. So, I pulled up my mental bootstraps and determined that this was the week. And you know what? I did it! I organized my kitchen cupboards, medicine cabinet, bathroom storage, and hall closet. And it feels goooooood.

I also made a MAJOR score at the Target season end toy sale. This is just the kind of thing that made me jealous when I was a working mom. When a great sale or event was taking place, I missed out because I was tied to a desk. I still sometimes wonder why I gave up the comfort of that desk... but for the first time ever, I have birthday and Christmas gifts for the kids ahead of time - and the savings cut our gift bill for the year in half.

Yeah, it's been an exciting week.


As I was doing all this shopping, I realized this is
probably the last year I will be able to throw toys in
our cart without my kids realizing what is going on...

Okay, so I know you only come to the blog on Friday to see the antics of two redheads, and occasionally their parents, so here goes:

Mark must have read my last blog post, because not only did he repeat his "Daddy" performance Monday night, he also said "Mamamama" at me. Twice. As I sat on the floor with Grace this morning, he said "Mama, mama, mama" from the time he left his lookout at the fireplace until he had pulled himself up onto me - using my hair as leverage. I didn't mind the whole hair pulling thing too much. *beams*

On Monday, my readers voted that yes, Dada was Mark's first word, but Mama is definitely second. (No matter what Grandma DeeDee and Papa say...)

Mark also threw in this milestone for good measure:


Oh yeah, I'm standing behind the toy
all by myself....



...and walking! Look out world!

He's going to be walking on his own before the end of the month if I don't find some way to tie him down more often.

Gracie was a big helper in the kitchen:


See Mommy? The sponge holds enough water
to wet the kitchen counter AND floor!

It didn't take me long to realize allowing a two year
old to hold a ceramic spoon holder over a cast iron
sink was probably a bad idea...



Mom, I'm not going to get anything done if you
keep asking me to look at the camera...

And she helped herself to the hat drawer:


You hafta pull the strings here to pop it
on your head just right!

Mark: "Are you sure it goes on this way?"
Gracie: "What can I say? It has no strings!"

We have lots of cute pictures of Grace at bathtime or in her bath towels, and I wanted some cute ones of Mark as well, so I asked Daddy to grab the camera and take some shots:


Peek a Boo!

Okay, enough with the puppy on my head...

No, seriously. How do I get this thing off??

Mark wasn't as into the bathtime photo shoot as much as Gracie was at his age. He also wasn't into as much as Daddy was. I swear the man took forty photos. He thought he was a fashion photographer on a supermodel cover shoot. I had to put my foot down.

This is my "Thanks for taking photos of the baby. You're really annoying me now. Put the camera down before I do something I'll regret" look:


"Trying to be nice even though I want to strangle you
with the camera strap right now..."

It didn't work. So I moved on to my "You are a dead man if you snap one more photo. STOP. NOW." (through clenched teeth) look:


Mark added another word to his repertoire that night: "Whoa."
(And he was thinking: "My Daddy sure is brave!")

We don't have a photo of what happened next. Evidence like that is always erased before it falls into the wrong hands.

Hope your week was exciting too, and you didn't have to do any talking through clenched teeth. If you did, I hope you erased the evidence!